» Poetry

At the Delachaise


Julia Johnson

You tell me your husband is really a leopard.
I tell you that you've had too much wine.
You insist that he has all of the qualities and attributes and characteristics
and the coloring of a leopard. And that he loves you for your beauty.
I ask why you didn't know this when you first met him
and you insist you did and I ask why you would marry a leopard.
You say that you knew no one would want to meet him but that you
had to marry him. I tell you I can't wait to meet him
and I promise I really do.
I really do want to meet him.
We share a tall cone of fries in white paper.
At the end of the night, we take off our masks and step onto the sidewalk,
and kiss each other in the air instead of touching.
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Julia Johnson

Julia Johnson, a native of New Orleans, earned a BA from Hollins College and an MFA in Creative Writing from The University of Virginia, where she was a Henry Hoyns Fellow. Johnson is the author of three collections of poems, Naming the Afternoon (LSU Press, 2002), The Falling Horse (Factory Hollow Press, 2012), and Subsidence (Groundhog Poetry Press, 2016). Her poems have appeared in The Cincinnati Review, Poetry International, Sentence, jubilat, Tin House, and numerous other journals and anthologies. She is Professor of English at University of Kentucky and was the founding director of UK’s MFA Program in Creative Writing.